British Industrial History

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Contents

General

English Electric was a 20th-century British industrial manufacturer, initially of electric motors, and expanding to include railway locomotives and aviation, before becoming part of The General Electric Company GEC.

1924 Siemens Brothers and Co was a substantial shareholder in English Electric Co, as a consequence of the purchase of the dynamo works at Stafford[7].

1925 Had worldwide experience with the Fullagar diesel engine which the company had developed for land use and was proving to be a very reliable means of driving electricity generators[8]

1925 After holding the position of Works manager of the English Electric Company at Stafford for the past two years, Mr. A. H. Sturdee is leaving to join the engineering firm of Ruston and Hornsby, Limited, as chief works manager of that company's five works at Lincoln. He is to be succeeded at Stafford by
Lieutenant-Colonel C. Hardie, D.S.O., of London.[9]

1939 Acquired Samlesbury Aerodrome in Lancashire and starts construction of the Handley PageHampden and Handley PageHalifax.

WWII: development in the Guided Missiles Division at Luton on analog computers, based on thermionic valve technology and intended for military applications. The machine resulting from this development was code-named the Luton Analogue Computing Engine (LACE).

1942 The company took over Napier and Son, an aero-engine company, and this helped establish the company's aircraft division. Company factories were converted to build the Handley Page Halifax heavy bomber.

1944 Producing 180 bhp engines for rail cars at the old Willans Works at Rugby.

1945 and after: EE invested heavily in aircraft design. W. E. W. Petter, the chief designer at Westland moved to English Electric to set up the new aircraft division, leading to major successes in the 1950s with the English Electric Lightning interceptor aircraft and the Canberra tactical bomber, which was still flying in 2005 in reconnaissance and other roles with many air forces, including the Royal Air Force.

1949 the National Physical Laboratory chose the English Electric Co as industrial partner in computer development, following its Automatic Computing Engine (ACE) project; industry was seen to be needed to improve reliability and performance of the machine. The new computer was called the Digital Electronic Universal Computing Engine (DEUCE) [14].

1952 The Nelson Industrial Estate at Kidsgrove, Staffordshire was begun with construction of a building for electrical engineering on West Avenue which was the "main works" of English Electric